The Ways of the Dead
by Mistress Adia
Summary: Young Severus Snape turns to Albus Dumbledore to try and make up for his sins. Then he sent to a mysterious woman with a dangerous past to try and learn to become a true spy.


Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Nothing at all. I would love to. It would be fun, but no. I am just borrowing what is not mine.

Albus Dumbledore looked down at the site before. Eighteen year old Severus Snape was lying on the ground in a puddle of his own blood, begging for his life, for a new life. Dumbledore knew that what this boy was about to go through was the worse experiences any human could go through in their entire lives. Severus had already sold his soul to the devil, but life was about to get worse for him. The life of a spy was cold, lonely, and dark. There would be no love for him, no light. His life was gone, he lived now for the world and not for himself.

Dumbledore looked down on him, pity in his eyes and said. "Child you must leave now, Take this Portkey and go where you will be trained to be a spy. I can offer you no comfort. All I can tell you is that what you are doing could save lives, and though it could not bring back those whom you have killed, it can save those who would have died by others hands." With that Dumbledore placed the Portkey in his hands, and Snape felt a pull beneath his navel and Dumbledore was gone from sight.

Snape sat up from the ground and looked around him. He was sitting before the front steps of a castle made of stone. It looked like a larger version of Hogwarts. It was unique and in it's own way beautiful. His vision was pulled away from the scenery, when the front doors where pushed open by a young woman who looked to be around his age, maybe a bit older. He couldn't help but stare at her. She looked as though she could be the devil yet still she was beautiful. Her hair was black and it fell all the way down her back, she was skinny and tall and so pale she looked white, but her eyes drew him to her unlike the rest of her body they were warm. They were the only part of her that looked alive. The were a deep chocolate color. They were the only thing that kept him from being terrified of her.

She looked down it him and said in a cold voice. "So you are Severus, my new student and slave. You think boy that I like my uncle would forgive and let you off easily, you should think again. Here you will learn discipline. You will learn to separate yourself from the rest of the world. Never again will you breathe the air as a free man. You sold your soul and now you will pay with the loneliness that will become your life. I am Isabella, your teacher and you master. You answer to me now, get used to it boy. I don't pity you, you made your own choices. Now get up there is work to be done."

Severus got up and follow Isabella into the castle. The inside looked dark. It was lit only by candles. The floor was black marble and the walls held paintings of many people who had probably been dead for over a hundred years. When they finally stopped walking they were at a wooden door. Isabella opened it with a key that she had pulled off of a chain she wore around her neck. She opened the door and waited for him to go through first.

The room had a wooden floor and huge windows, all of the walls were painted blood red, but beside that the room was empty. Severus looked at Isabella in question. "This is your training room. In here I teach you control. Control over your mind. If you want to be my uncle Albus Dumbledore's spy you must learn complete control over your mind and body. You know your magic well. You need no help with that, but you have no control. If you go back to the world now and try to spy try to get important information you will get caught right away. So for now you will sit in this room. With nothing but yourself, lost in your thoughts. Lost in your own mind. I will come for you in two weeks and then we began the second stages of your training." With that Isabella left Severus, with so many questions. All alone in a time where he needed people the most. It was a time where he was scared of what he had done and what he was going to do now. All he had was his mind to answer his own questions.

The first four days were the hardest for Severus, all he did was sit in a corner with his knees pushed up against his chest staring at a wall. He was questioning himself. He was questioning all of the reasons he had come up with to become a Death Eater in the first place. All he had want was to be excepted, and to feel like he had power, but now sitting in this room he felt that he had neither of these things. He was weak, he had let the feelings of anger he had because of how he was treated control his life. He blamed Black and Potter for all of the things wrong in his life. That anger had built until it was to much and he had turned to darkness, only to discover to late that he had made a mistake and that his life was traveling down to a terrible place.

He wanted to take back his sins, but he knew that he couldn't. The fifth day he started to pace lost in thought and in anger. He punched the walls but felt no pain. The rest of the days after were like a blur to Severus. He had given up on his anger and all of his pain and he had excepted that he could not turn back, there was no correcting his sins. He finally excepted what he had done. He had completed his task, he was ready for training. The training he would face the next day. That night he had his full night of sleep sense he had become a Death Eater.

Isabella had watched him in his pain and in his anger. In her own way she felt sorry for the boy. His life was about to become hell. She of all people would know this. She too was a spy. She had lost all emotion and all the good in her life. She had become a cold hearted monster. She still could not figure out why she tried so hard to protect the people of the world who looked down upon her, and wished her dead. None of them had ever felt the pain, the pain of being alone. Even with all of the people around her she still felt lonely. Even with all the blankets she wrapped around herself at night, she still felt cold. She could not be saved from the prison that she created for herself. In a way in comforted her. Darkness in a way being her only light.

She looked in the window at the sleeping boy, no longer in his corner. She knew what was to come for him. His blood may not be innocent, but he still was a child.

In the morning she collected him from his room and took him down a set of hallways into another part of the huge castle. It was a room was mats and weight and other muggle training devices. He looked at her with a look on his face like he was begging her to be joking. Noticing his look she said. " The one thing men like Voldemort over look is the ways of the muggles. They do not see the usefulness of such things. So we will use what they do not bother to notice to our advantage. Now boy show me what you got. Fight me." With that she raised her fists.

The last thing Severus Snape saw was a shiny silver ring with the Slytherin family crest on it, and then he felt pain go through his face and his whole world went black.


End file.
